# SM-License - Commerical, non-compete
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Steem Monsters welcomes creators making content set within the Steem Monsters universe. However, there are some rules that you should follow. We are trying to strike a balance between protecting the rights of Steem Monsters, the direction of the Steem Monsters universe and fan content. We can't wait to see what animations, art, cosplay, fanfics, games, live-streams and anything else that you come up with.

The Steem Monsters license has three main components.

1. Attribution
2. Behavior Standards
3. Non-Compete and Steem Monsters+

### Right to determine
Steem Monsters, a Steem Based Business (SBB) and its delegated authorities are the final arbiters of what constitutes a violation of the license.

## 1. Attribution
Anyone that uses characters from the Steem Monsters universe, images, cards, names in their products or really anything related to the game must point their users back to steemmonsters.com, the Discord-https://discord.gg/CAFJRjY, and the steem account steemit.com/@steemmonsters. You have to state the origin of the Steem Monsters material you're using.

## 2. Behavior Standards
There are some bare minimum rules to following when using Steem Monsters content:

### PG13+
Steem Monsters is meant to be 13+ as the major audience. Anything animated that could be viewed by a kid should be viewed as PG or younger. Written stories can be darker or more mature, but anything that's visual needs to be child friendly. So, no nudity, no grotesque violence, and no sex. Furthermore; don't make things that are illegal to use in your country while using Steem Monsters content.

During the course of the material you may write and create things that deal with adult themes; however, you can't use this brand to *promote* things that are harmful towards others.

### Difficult subjects and hate speech
The values housed in Steem Monsters are Peace, Abundance, and Liberty. You are welcome to explore themes that are difficult like death, end of relationships, puberty, and other tricky subjects. You can tackle subjects like racism, but we explicitly don't want you promoting these subjects as good. You can create content regarding tricky topics, but the story line ultimately has to lead to a conclusion that racism and violence are bad as opposed to a great solution.

People in your stories can espouse some hatespeech, but they need to be the villians and not the heroes. You can have child slavery, for example, but the story arc needs to show it to be a bad thing.

In short, you can talk about some tough stuff, but you can't promote it in your content!

## 3. Non-compete

The goal is to make a decentralized game on a decentralized blockchain. You are not welcome to use our art, content, and platform to compete directly with card sales, but you are welcome to use our material for commercial activities.

**You can** create a comic book and sell it. You can create a video game that uses the current state of the Steem Monster's game as inventory. You can make your own game and your own rules using our cards.

**You cannot** use our art and our cards to make a game where you sell those art and cards in such a manner that a person would have normally purchased something directly from Steem Monsters instead chooses to purchase cards from you.

## Steem Monsters+
When making material in the community that hasn't been explicity approved by the Steem Monsters team you need to use the term "Steem Monsters+," spoken as "Steem Monsters Plus" to denote that your material isn't official cannon and you are taking Steem Monsters characters and making your own content with it.

# This is a change to how we had originally discussed things
Initially we discussed a non-commercial license, and we're changing it to open it up. It's now a commmerical non-compete licence. As long as you're not competing direcly with card sales, you are citing us, and you're not promoting violence or hate speech you're welcome to use the Steem Monsters+ logo, artwork, sound effects, and any other material we make publicly available to make your own games, comics, stories, products, songs, art... whatever, market it, and sell it.

# Reprecussions

This is Steem. Your actions carry consequences. If you violate this policy you're likely to find that the people that co-own this game, which is everyone that owns cards become upset. You'll catch down votes, your rep will be hurt, and you'll find yoursef banned from communities. We'll resort to legal action if necessary.

Guys, these guidelines are some of the most friendly in the world for a private enterprise. Stick within the rules. Don't compete with card sales. If you see people using our art and material to make a competeing system (basically a separate inventory) please let us know and we'll help sick the entire community on them.

# Official Licensing

From time to time Steem Monsters may want to fully endorse the product, service, or content that you're creating. In these cases Steem Monsters typically asks for 10% of sales to be returned to the @steemmonsters account in Steem or to be paid in USD or other crypto as agreed.

Alternatively, we may choose to buy your stuff outright.

Please contact @aggroed or @yabapmatt on Steem through Discord if you'd like to have your service, content, or product reviewed for official acceptance.